Czech teachers are overloaded compared to their colleagues in other European countries, according to newly released statistics by the Pedagogical Chamber.
The data shows that while the number of students in the Czech Republic is growing, the number of teachers is not — and the high number of children in the classroom is leading to widespread burnout among Czech educators.
Compared to the EU average of 13 children per teacher, in the Czech Republic in 2018 one teacher was in charge of close to 20 children. The average teacher in Austria has ten pupils in the classroom, 11 in Poland, 12 in Germany and 15 in Slovakia. Luxembourg had the lowest pupil-teacher-ratio in Europe at 8.
In extraordinary cases primary school classes in the Czech Republic are seeing up to 34 pupils per teacher. The chamber says that in order to achieve the EU average it would be necessary to employee more teachers.
The Ministry of Education, however, says that the comparison between countries is inadequate due to the fact that every nation has a vastly differing education system.
The most crowded classrooms can be found in Prague which has an average of 22 pupils her teacher; the best pupil-to-teacher ratio in the Czech Republic can be found in the Zlín region.